This week on The Tudors, Anne Boleyn has nightmares that she will be burned at the stake and it's Lady Mary who lights the fire.

These nightmares fuel her ego in her waking world. Again, she pushes Henry to ask the French ambassador about Elizabeth being betrothed to King Francis' son. He informs her to, "Leave the greater things to my care."

One of those things is the dissolution of the Catholic monasteries. Thomas Boleyn reminds the king about all the wealth that is out there and how little the monarchy has. Thomas Cromwell then brings in the French to destroy the monasteries and take everything they've got.

Meanwhile, in what seems like a weak (and drunken) moment for the king, he barges in on a party the queen is having. A seductive dance turns into a rough sexual encounter. During it, Anne says she wants to conceive a son in his father's image. She also eludes to Henry to kill off Katherine and Mary, something you can see does not sit well with Henry.

Back at Kimbolton Castle, Katherine is on her deathbed any way. In her last words, she dictates a letter to Henry, calling him her "Most dear lord, King and husband." She pardons him, prays for him and asks that he be a good father to Mary.

When Henry reads the letter in solitude the day after her death, he is visibly saddened, but publicly he calls for displays of joy regarding her death. Queen Anne and Princess Elizabeth are decked out in bright yellow dresses - the Spanish color of mourning. Anne declares, "Now, I'm indeed queen." And she says they are on the edge of a golden world.

Her world, as she knows it, will not last long as it is January 1536 and the king has had a chance meeting with Lady Jane Seymour at her father's house. The king now invites her to court.

Anne doesn't know -- but we do -- that she will only remain as queen another five months.

Comments

Watching this episode, this was the first time I ever felt sorry for Queen Katherine. All this time, in all I'd ever learned about King Henry VIII, I only really got his side. I was pulled in by the power and figured that he was the king of England. But on her death bed, you understood how she had been neglected because of that power. She was the true Queen.

lauren | May 12, 2008 9:04:31 AM | #

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Watching this episode, this was the first time I ever felt sorry for Queen Katherine. All this time, in all I'd ever learned about King Henry VIII, I only really got his side. I was pulled in by the power and figured that he was the king of England. But on her death bed, you understood how she had been neglected because of that power. She was the true Queen.

lauren | May 12, 2008 9:04:34 AM | #

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